In my still-early readings of major works by both Hegel and Schopenhauer, I've come across two notions with which my own art philosophy has affinities. Produced while the rational worldview was still alive and kickin, as avant-garde as anything today (for its day), the works of these two thinkers just beg very slow reading. I'll comment more upon whatever lasting value their catalog offers to integral art philosophy as I proceed to wind my way through their sequential phoneticisms. But meritous ideas have already popped.
From Schopenhauer, there is this notion, particular to music theory (he was the last major philosopher to have a workable theory of music have a fundamental place within his metaphysics) that rhythm is the fundamental dynamic of music, that arranges and holds together the music object. What I'd add is that it is crucial to distinguish rhythm from beat. Beat is what we tap our feet to, what we clap to, what we use to dance to; it is the outward sound that reflects a piece of music's tempo. On the other hand, rhythm is a more flexible term that applies to any aspect of music's raw materials. There is a rhythm of beat, a rhythm of harmony, a rhythm of melody, a rhythm of timbre. Much like how (from Wilber) matter is the outward sheath/manifestation of consciousness at every level of being (body, mind, essence), rhythm is the outward manifestation of every architectural level of music as it operates in time. 'Rhythm' has commonly meant many things in the study of music, and that is because it is, to speak plainly, the wardrobe that every aspect of music wears.
There are four basic levels of music architecture -- beat, harmony, melody, and timbre. Music's levels reflect states of the soul. Each level is a representation of energy that resides in human consciousness -- each connects to consciousness through metaphor -- and thus each level is a kind of material signifier, which represents subjective signifieds of consciousness. The large scale grammar needed for a whole piece of music is the 'syntax', and the cultural meanings/interpretation/responses to music wholes are the 'semantics'. To connect signifieds, signifiers, syntax, and semantics is to speak in terms of semiotics, the introduction of which is an ongoing part of my essay, The Embrace of Sound.
Here is the diagram specific to musical signifiers part of a semiotics-based discussion. The diagram connects Schoepenhauer's basic notion of rhythm's fundamental place with my notion of the basic elements of music in a holarchy (i.e., a heirarchy in which levels transcend and include those previous).
Beat is fundamental; harmony (or 'harmonic space') transcends and includes beat; melody transcends and includes harmony; timbre (the goal of orchestration) transcends and includes melody. And each aspect functions through rhythm.
Thus to say that music is a rhythmic artform is only accurate if by that you mean that music, taken as a whole, is a multi-aspect entity with each aspect operating through rhythm of various kinds. 'Melodic rhythm' is quite different than 'timbre rhythm' is quite different from 'harmonic rhythm' and 'beat rhythm'. But rhythm is at at every level - it is the regular (or irregular) occurance of aural events of different organization. So in fact, music is a rhythmic art form if seen in this way (which stresses the formal musical object).
Now from Hegel, there is this notion that a piece of artwork is a question. For Hegel, artwork is "an address to the responsive heart, an appeal to affections and to minds", and thus an aesthetic object with both material and internal (to audiences) manifestations. The reason I like the idea that an artwork is a question, however, is on the 'story of the artist' end of the larger artworld. It well-frames in practical terms what it means to make artwork (or at least one way to make art). This transdisciplinary notion suggests that to make artwork is the result of, essentially, a broad scientific method of hypothesis, experiment, result (from Wilber). It is particular a notion well-suited for those artists willing to experiment with their art form. It is best used by artists who have learned their medium's conventions, and thus can earn the right to look for novelty in a wide-open postconventional space. Artists have to pay their dues in order to truly treat their artwork production with the elegant simplicity of 'the question'.
But it can be used by artists of any level. Recently, I've posed the question, 'what would it sound like to combine acoustic piano and drum machine?' Previously, I've posed the question, 'what would it be like to combine the spirituality of the 'who am I?' koan with 16th century Italian sacred choral tradition -- the result is my 'Who Am I Motet'. Treating artwork as a question, for working artists, is basically the foundation of experimental art. Whether the result is preconventional experimentalism, conventional experimentalism, or postconventional experimentalism depends upon the development and skill set of the particular artist.
And what if we were to connect these basic insights from Hegel and Schopenhauer? It would be something like the following. When we compose music, we do so as the exploration of a particular question of rhythm and how rhythm might operate on the various levels of musical architecture. Or simply, music -- it is a question you pose in rhythm. And to the composers and artists out there, I ask -- what is the rhythm of your most nascent intuition? Can you take that which pokes just over the horizon behind your every breath and make some kind of form of it? I ask these because if you are looking for your own edge, it lies in just that sort of question.
Update -- Salamone gave shout out on this post in his blog. This inspired me to recut this entry with slightly finer cloth, so thanks to Signor Salamonium for the bounce.
